<p>We are looking for a sunny vacation and have a couple free tickets we could use to head down to PR for a couple weeks. Anyone ever been there? We plan to spend most time on the beach at Rincon or similar and rent a condo.</p>
<p>I’ve been there-- stayed at the rio mar development, which is very well located and has a nice beach. El luqiullo is an even nicer beach just a bit down the road. They have condos and a golf course as well as a hotel. It’s easy to get from there to el yunque (rainforest), and the bioluminescent bays at either fajardo or vieques. Its also not super far from san juan.</p>
<p>Not my favorite island, but Rincon is the nicest part. Great food at the Horned Dorset, a nice boutique hotel, but food is otherwise spotty. We just ended up eating the great local chicken and beans and rice, the fish everywhere was frozen!</p>
<p>Many places in the Caribbean I’d go to first and there are great deals this winter. What are you looking for?</p>
<p>We’re going next month. We’re staying two night here: [Puerto</a> Rico bed and breakfast at the edge of the EL Yunque rainforest of Puerto Rico](<a href=“http://www.rainforestinn.com/]Puerto”>http://www.rainforestinn.com/), two nights here: <a href=“http://www.mimisguesthouse.com/[/url]”>http://www.mimisguesthouse.com/</a> This place has wonderful reviews and one can walk to a private beach on the Caribbean. We’re spending our last night here: [San</a> Juan Hotels, Puerto Rico Luxury Vacations & PR Room Reservations - Hotel El Convento](<a href=“http://www.elconvento.com/]San”>http://www.elconvento.com/) in Old San Juan. Too much moving around really, but my husband wanted to go scuba diving and the south side is apparently the best for that, I didn’t want to miss the rainforest and Old San Juan is really neat. This site was very helpful: [Puerto</a> Rico Day Trips | A Visitor Magazine and Travel Guide Full of Useful Information That You Can Trust](<a href=“http://www.puertoricodaytrips.com/]Puerto”>http://www.puertoricodaytrips.com/) besides tripadvisor, of course!</p>
<p>I’ve only been there once, for about five days, two years ago. I loved Old San Juan, much more than I expected to. Beautiful, charming, historic, easy to see walking. Great bookstores and art galleries. Music everywhere: latin jazz, salsa, reggaeton. And I thought the food there was excellent, both high-end and low-end. I also second El Yunque, where we had a nice hike, but spent way more time than we wanted because our rental car had two tires blow out, and we had to wait for a tow and a replacement. And the big public beach at Luquillo, which was one of the nicest I’ve ever seen, with non-tourist-priced drinks and five-star people-watching.</p>
<p>El Convento in Old San Juan is a wonderful place to stay! I think you will really enjoy it there.</p>
<p>If you have the time, I would highly recommend a trip out to Vieques and one night on the island. The bio bay in Vieques is something I would highly recommend that you see at least once in your lifetime. Vieques is quiet and charming, and if you rent a jeep for the day, you can go out and find yourself your own stretch of beach on which to relax. You may never see another person come by your beach. Really! It’s one of my favorite places on earth.</p>
<p>I also highly recommend a trip to El Yunque. It’s beautiful. Just make sure that you wear good shoes in which you won’t slip!</p>
<p>I’m also exploring a trip to Puerto Rico. I’m looking at the El Convento web site and I can’t find any room prices - I can see room types, a calendar for availability, but no actual dollars anywhere. Can someone who has been there give a rough idea of the costs?</p>
<p>Sorry to divert the thread - I hope this is okay to ask. One of our kids has an event to go to in Puerto Rico in August, near San Juan. One parent has to go along, but we’re not sure whether the other parent and other kid will go too. If anyone has suggestions for places to stay that are pleasant but not very expensive, I’d love to hear them. We’ve never been to Puerto Rico and know nothing about it, so I don’t know if it’s a good idea for all of us to try to go - maybe the other parent and kid will end up doing something fun close to home instead.</p>
<p>San Juan is fun for a few days. The downtown is cute and El Convento is pretty nice, especially the larger rooms. It really was a convent and some rooms are really small. There’s also a strip of mixed price hotels between downtown and the airport–ranging from a Ritz Carlton to cheap condos-- which are fine if you want a beach/pool vacation.</p>
<p>San Juan does have good restaurants and great discount brand name shopping.</p>
<p>Barrons: I’m going to Rincon Monday for a week. I’ve been there a few times and can recommend the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Taino Divers for all your scuba diving, fishing or whale watching needs.</li>
<li>Katarina Sails for a fun-filled day of sailing and snorkeling around Rincon.</li>
<li>The ShipWreck Bar and Grill near the marina in Rincon is my absolute favorite restaurant. The food is fresh, plentiful, delicious and reasonably priced. (The Shipwreck salad and fish tacos are two of my favorites.)
The bar is a great place to hang out and chat with your friends or meet new ones!</li>
<li> For a fabulous breakfast with a view, venture up into the hills to “La Rosa Inglesa” or the English Rose. It’s located in a very small B&B way up in the hills. Your breakfast is included if you stay at the B&B, but they do serve breakfast to the general public. It is wonderful.</li>
</ol>
<p>We were in Rincon once for a wedding and rented a house; don’t know the details as bride made the arrangements for us. Other times I’ve stayed with friends. This trip I’ll be staying at Tres Sirenas, a lovely B&B right on the beach.</p>
<p>[Oceanfront</a> Bed & Breakfast in Rincon, PR | Tres Sirenas Beachfront Inn - Rincon, PR](<a href=“http://www.tressirenas.com/]Oceanfront”>http://www.tressirenas.com/)</p>
<p>I have also heard wonderful things about The Blue Boy Inn which is located near the marina, right next door to the Shipwreck Bar and Grill and Taino Divers. Hope some of this is helpful to you. Enjoy your trip!</p>
<p>Hmom5; frozen fish in Caribbean restaurants? Hard to believe. But then again, PR is the U.S.</p>
<p>Another major reason we picked it was to visit my father’s hometown which is outside San Juan. We plan a couple days in San Juan and then 10 days at the beach. I love roast pork, fried plantains, and good rice and beans so I won’t starve and will probably gain 10 pounds. I also hear they have casinos.</p>
<p>Calreader, On the El Convento site, pick a date first. At the next screen, go to the bottom where you can click on promotional rates, that brings you to a screen where you can pick AAA rates, EL Convento Special, etc. I tried all the rates and found the AAA to be the lowest for my dates. They have a wine and cheese social on the roof every evening that sounds pretty cool. </p>
<p>I second the Vieques bio-bay trip. We did this on a first visit eleven years ago and I can’t talk my husband into a second one.</p>
<p>Barrons, if you’ve been living in Seattle for all these years, I gather you’ve been starving all along because there are probably not many places for a fine roast pork, plantains or rice and beans meal in the Great Northwest. LOL.</p>
<p>There actually is a decent little place in Ballard. I really wish I had learned to cook the PR food from my dad before he passed. It was delicious but the recipes were all in his head. </p>
<p>[Welcome</a> To La Isla](<a href=“http://www.laislaseattle.com/]Welcome”>http://www.laislaseattle.com/)</p>
<p>Kathiep, I’m reviving your old link … how did your PR vacation work out? I’m liking the idea of Old San Juan for the music and town, but how are the beaches nearby?</p>
<p>We did a day trip to one just south of San Juan and it was very different then the East Coast beaches I am used to. We really just wanted a few hours on the beach so didn’t go to probably the better known beaches, just some place near a strip of beach restaurants. Anyway the water was nice and there were lots of families but more trash then I’m used to seeing. We went to another beach on the SW side of the island to Guanica and had a wonderful time snorkeling and kayaking. We also went kayaking in Fajardo through this company - [Kayaking</a> Puerto Rico Adventures, Inc. - Fajardo - Reviews of Kayaking Puerto Rico Adventures, Inc. - TripAdvisor](<a href=“http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g612474-d653791-Reviews-Kayaking_Puerto_Rico_Adventures_Inc-Fajardo_Puerto_Rico.html]Kayaking”>http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g612474-d653791-Reviews-Kayaking_Puerto_Rico_Adventures_Inc-Fajardo_Puerto_Rico.html) and we did a Segway ride in San Juan, which was sooo much fun! I loved the city of San Juan. While we were there they were filming that movie with Johnny Depp, The Rum diaries, right outside our hotel!!</p>
<p>Thanks, kathiep. I’ll have to watch the Rum Diaries if we end up going to PR. Also, I didn’t realize that I should research beaches … I would hate to get my kids to a dirty beach … they’d never let me hear the end of it.</p>
<p>We just got back from Puerto Rico. It wasn’t as nice as most other Caribbean islands. Old San Juan was interesting for a day or two, but the beaches in San Juan aren’t that nice. We prefered the beach at the Wyndham Rio Mar, which was near the rainforest. Vieques, just off the coast of the main island, actually had the nicest beaches, but the beaches are very isolated and the crime rate is pretty high for such a small island.</p>
<p>I was bored silly in Vieques and there were no good restaurants. I used to love the Horned Dorset in Rincon. Agree there are much better Caribbean destinations.</p>